Research Program Manager, Frontier Assurance

# Research Program Manager, Frontier Assurance

OpenAISan Francisco (Hybrid)
Full-time $239,000 – $328,000 / year Upload your resume once and Scout applies for you Apply with Scout Share this job:

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The Research Program Manager leads independent assessments of OpenAI’s frontier models and safeguards, coordinating external research partners and internal teams. The role also turns assessment findings into recommendations for safety decisions and clear public documentation, including system cards and reports.
* Full-time
* Hybrid### Skills and expertise

Research partnerships

Program management AI evaluations

Third-party assessments

Safety documentation

Technical communication

Stakeholder management### Key responsibilities
* Design third-party assessments of frontier models and safeguards with researchers and external partners.
* Bring external findings to safety decision-makers and track follow-up actions.
* Lead public safety documentation that explains evidence, limitations, and uncertainty.## How this job compares

Compared with 11 open manager research jobs on October 10, 2026.Pay:
This job pays $239K to $328K a year. The 6 open manager research jobs that publish US pay start at $248K on average, so this job starts in line with them.

Similar open jobs:
We Love AI Jobs lists 11 open manager research jobs at 8 companies.

Remote work:
This job is hybrid. 0 of the 11 manager research jobs (0%) are remote.

AI in this role:
Medium. The role uses AI tools and works with AI systems as a regular part of the job. The role regularly engages with frontier-model evaluations, safeguards, and AI safety research. Its main work is coordinating assessments and communicating evidence, rather than building or training models.## Full description

About the Team The Frontier Assurance team brings independent scrutiny into OpenAI’s safety decisions and helps the public understand and assess our safety work. We lead third-party assessments and safeguard testing for OpenAI’s flagship launches, pilot new assurance mechanisms such as embedded auditing, run our misalignment disclosure process, and incorporate independent expert input as evidence for critical safety decisions.

About the Role As a Research Program Manager on the Frontier Assurance team, you will build programs that bring independent expertise into frontier AI safety decisions and make the evidence behind those decisions understandable to the public. You will lead external research partnerships and third-party assessments, coordinate public safety documentation, and develop new approaches to independent scrutiny and transparency. Working across research, engineering, product, policy, and communications, you will help ensure external findings inform concrete decisions and that our public explanations accurately reflect the evidence, limitations, and remaining uncertainty.

We’re looking for people with deep experience in research partnerships and program management with technical and research teams. This role combines partnership management, cross-functional coordination, an understanding of AI safety research, alignment, and evaluations, and strong communication skills. You will work with researchers and engineers within OpenAI and across the external community to initiate projects, set ambitious goals and milestones, and drive execution across multiple teams.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new  this role, you will:
• Design and run third-party assessment programs for frontier models and safeguards, including independent evaluations, adversarial testing, and new approaches such as embedded auditing. Work with researchers and external partners to define…